Marriage Matters: The strength of a piece of paper

That “little piece of paper,” or marriage license, is worth more than its detractors understand, because it’s not about the marriage, it’s about the relationship.

By James and Audora Burg

That “little piece of paper,” or marriage license, is worth more than its detractors understand, because it’s not about the marriage, it’s about the relationship. And as illogical as that statement sounds, that is precisely why marriage is so important.We first had this “a-ha!” moment while reading a provocatively-titled blog post, “Why I believe my marriage is perfect.” One statement within the post really stuck with us: “…our marriage is the thing that has held our relationship together.” That statement is the basis for the author’s claim that his marriage is perfect: it is performing its purely practical and utterly non-romantic function of serving as a protective layer for their relationship in the same way a shell shelters an oyster or a husk covers an ear of corn.This distinction between marriage and relationship made us stop and think. Maybe it’s because after having been married for awhile, somewhere along the line we no longer made a distinction between our relationship and our marriage. Both words had become synonymous for the other, and for our Us. When we have written before about the protective economic and social benefits marriage confers, particularly to women and children, it was with an attitude of reporting the preponderance of evidence provided in social science research. Yet, even social scientists war over these outcomes, as they are often discordant with present-day beliefs held by many in society. So it was not surprising to us when a national brouhaha erupted over a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Ari Fleischer that restated several positive outcomes related to marriage. While many of the facts regarding the benefits of marriage in Fleischer’s article are not new, the article may be interpreted as implying that merely acquiring a marriage license (the technical point of being in a state of marriage) somehow bequeaths supernatural protection to couples possessing that piece of paper. Our point, and we believe it is shared by many in the healthy marriage movement, is that it is not marriage by itself per se, that confers the protective benefits to individuals and society; rather, it is the attitude and mindset that comes with living in, and living out, a healthy marriage.As author and therapist David Schnarch notes, marriage is a crucible where through heat and pressure, two elements are recreated into an alloy: something stronger, more flexible, or more durable, depending on the elements. The importance of marriage as a change agent is not in being forced into, or trapped within the crucible, but to choosing to embark on the transformative experience offered by the crucible. The blogger’s marriage wasn’t perfect because it was blissfully conflict-free, but instead because it provided the heat and pressure to transform both spouses into something better than they were alone.

James Burg, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue, Fort Wayne. His wife, Audora, is a freelance writer. You may contact them at marriage@charter.net.